Autoreceptor-induced inhibition of neuropeptide Y release from PC-12 cells is mediated by Y-2 receptors

Pheochromocytoma (PC)-12 cells express Y-1, Y-2, and Y-3 neuropeptide Y (NPY) receptors when differentiated with nerve growth factor (NGF). The present work evaluated NGF-differentiated PC-12 cells as a model system to study modulation of NPY release by NPY autoreceptors. We demonstrated that both K+ and nicotine stimulated concomitant release of NPY and dopamine from differentiated PC-12 cells. We also showed in this study that NPY release from PC-12 cells was attenuated in a concentration-dependent manner by peptide YY (PYY)-(13-36), a selective agonist for the Y-2 type of NPY receptors. This result demonstrated that NPY release could be modulated by NPY autoreceptors of the Y-2 subtype. The inhibitory action of PYY-(13-36) may be mediated at least in part by inhibition of N-type Ca2+ channels, because PYY-(13-36) could not produce further inhibitory effects in the presence of a maximum effective concentration of omega-conotoxin, an N-type Ca2+-channel blocker. The inhibition by PYY-(13-36) could be blocked by pretreatment of cells with pertussis toxin, suggesting that an inhibitory GTP-binding protein was involved. Furthermore, the function of NPY autoreceptors could be modulated by other receptors such as beta-adrenergic and ATP receptors. The evoked release of NPY was also attenuated by ATP and adenosine, which have been shown to be colocalized and coreleased with NPY from sympathetic nerve terminals. These results suggest that PC-12 cells differentiated with NGF may be an ideal model to study regulatory mechanisms of NPY release and that autoreceptor-mediated regulation of NPY release appears to act through the Y-2 subtype of the NPY receptor.